Here's what my almost always fallible crystal ball is telling me. But hey, I can only be right if I stick my neck out with a prediction.
The Biden administration was forced to enunciate in late January what exactly would be considered a Russian invasion of Ukraine. From the official White House Briefing Room statement
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-roo ... s-ukraine/:
Press Secretary Peppermint Patty wrote:
President Biden has been clear with the Russian President: If any Russian military forces move across the Ukrainian border, that's a renewed invasion, and it will be met with a swift, severe, and united response from the United States and our Allies.
Emphasis mine. So the administration has drawn a bright line in the sand as to what, ultimately, they will consider to be an actionable "invasion."
Putin doesn't want an actual military engagement. He never has. He really doesn't have much to gain from that. What he wants is virtual if not literal control of Ukraine. Ukraine isn't going to be admitted into NATO any time soon, and they've had a very clear demonstration recently (as in Kabul, August 2021) what it means to be a military ally of the United States under the Biden administration.
The sending of a few thousand lightly armed and lightly armored U.S. troops into Ukraine is meaningless except as a show of some form of action on the part of Biden's White House. They couldn't stand up to any type of military incursion from Russia any better than a few troops left at the Kabul airport could prevent the Taliban from taking control of Afghanistan in a matter of hours.
What Russia is very good at--and that we, BTW, are not so much--is 21st-century hybrid warfare:
Putin doesn't need to send any regular military forces across the border into Ukraine to get what he wants. But he does need the psychological and sociological
show of heavy military force as being a clear and present danger. He's achieved that. And we know that elements of the hybrid engagement like cyber incursions, economic pressures, propaganda, and local unease and unrest already have been underway in Ukraine.
Prediction #1: Putin will get what he wants. There will be no Russian forces crossing into Ukraine, but he will end up with...conciliatory arrangements made with the Ukrainian leadership. By that I mean, more explicitly, that Putin will end up with full influence over Ukraine/Russia political and economic decisions that concern him, whether that's from the existing government ingratiating themselves to Russian will, or the replacement of key governmental officials. To the average Ukrainian the shift will be subtle and perhaps not very noticeable...except for the relief of seeing Russian heavy armor move back away from the border and the economy with Russia starting to flow more readily.
Prediction #2: The Biden administration has had the worst first-year presidency poll numbers in recent memory. What they've been setting the stage for isn't meaningful opposition to Russian aggression. There's no moral "iron spine" anywhere near the Oval Office.
No, what the behind-the-scenes handlers of this administration have seen is a crisis of which they can take full political advantage. That's really all the sending of, relatively speaking, a handful of our brave and under-equipped armed forces to Kyiv and the "powerful" messaging out of the White House--i.e., all the "will be met with a swift, severe, and united response from the United States" rhetoric--has been about.
Putin will retire from the Ukrainian border without shots fired but with having achieved most everything he really wants. And then the U.S. internal propaganda machine will kick into high gear (there may even be <gasp> a rare prime-time speech from the president) touting this huge success of the Biden presidency:
See? Joe Biden--the forceful, moral, powerful leader--stood up to Vladimir Putin, the Russian Bear, and forced him to withdraw from Ukraine. Joe Biden promised protection of Ukraine and he delivered big-time. If the world ever doubted the strength and resolve of the Biden administration, let this be a lesson. Don't mess with Uncle Joe!
And a large percentage of the American people will buy that. Biden's poll numbers will spike upward and--because so many have such short attention spans--some of the political stain of the Fiasco in Afghanistan will be erased.
